What was the most liberating thing about becoming Bob Evans?

I think just the ability to step outside the confines of a four-piece rock’n’roll band, you know. Jebediah does Jebediah better than anybody else, but I was becoming more and more inspired by other kinds of music, and I wanted to explore a broader range of instrumentation that just seemed difficult to get over the line with Jebediah.

I appreciate you’ve probably been asked this 1,000 times, but why could you not have done any of that as Kevin Mitchell?

Yeah, it’s a great question. Kevin Mitchell was the singer from Jebediah, and I didn’t want to ever be accused of riding on the coattails of the band’s success. It was really important for me to protect what Jebediah had that was so special. So I went out incognito.

You’re pushing your Bob Evans album, Suburban Songbook, for its 20th anniversary. How do you feel about that record now?

I love it. It’s one of the proudest things I’ve ever done. From an artistic point of view, a songwriter’s point of view, whatever – it’s the best thing I’ve ever done.

OK, that probably answers this question – are there any songs you wrote when you were younger that you find harder to relate to and sing now?

Oh, totally. Heaps, especially with Jebs. A lot of those early songs I wrote when I was still a teenager. Teflon is the first one that comes to mind. Such a stupid song! But even the ones that are a bit awkward, there’s something endearing about it for me, because there’s an honesty about it, which makes it hard to hate it.

What’s been your most memorable interaction with a fan?

When Suburban Songbook came out, I got this incredible email completely out of the blue from Brad Shepherd from Hoodoo Gurus. He wrote to me saying how much he loved the record, how much his family loved it, his daughter, it was something they all enjoyed together. And it’s fucking Brad Shepherd from the Gurus!

Maybe the fact that he wrote it in an email was better, because I was able to really take it in. If we had just bumped into each other at a gig or whatever, it would have been this fleeting thing, and I probably would have forgotten about it.

Do you believe in extraterrestrial life?

Oh, absolutely, yeah. I think it’s far more likely, in this ever-expanding infinite cosmos, that there are other things out there than not. It’s just a statistical probability. I think it’s madness to think that there isn’t. I’m not convinced that we’ve ever come in contact with them. It’s possible that they’ve come into contact with us. Maybe the aliens were cruising around with the dinosaurs, I don’t know – but I do believe that aliens exist, yes.

What would you say to them?

I’d be straight on the peace train. I’d be like, dudes, I know it looks bad down here, but 90% of us are just loving, peaceful people. It’s just a few bad eggs that are making us all look bad.

Would you rather die at the bottom of the ocean, or out in space?

Out in space, for sure!

Shorts on stage. Yes or no?

Well, I’m guilty of doing that in my younger years. It’s a big no now, but yes, I committed that crime many times. I haven’t worn shorts on stage for a long time. Maybe I should. I’ve actually got pretty decent legs. I should probably be making the most of the few parts of my body that still look good.

Apart from shorts on stage, what’s been your worst fashion crime?

Oh God. So many. The first festival we ever played was the Summersault festival, and I wore brown jeans that I cut off into long shorts that went past my knees, just with scissors. I had this stripey T-shirt – which was OK – and then I had this weird old beanie that I put on, and I was really skinny. I looked like a condom.

What was the last thing you played on Spotify – or maybe another streaming service, since Spotify is basically evil?

Yeah, I don’t really use Spotify any more. My family have got an Apple account that we all share. I’ll have a look … The La’s was the last album. They only made one. Everyone knows There She Goes, but there are some other songs on there that are just as good.

• The 20th anniversary edition of Bob Evans’ Suburban Songbook will be released digitally and on vinyl on 4 September, with a national tour beginning on 5 September. The documentary Jebediah: Are We OK? will be released in Australian cinemas in October.